Their Will Undone by R.J. Valldeperas - 2.75 / 5 stars
That ending was unsatisfying as shit unless there’s a sequel but if there is a sequel I am also mad because it was marketed as a standalone and I am so tired of publishers doing that.
The story itself was fine, it just felt like pretty standard romantasy. I originally put this on my TBR because the blurb said it is inspired by a true story from the Inca empire and I’m always up for fantasy that is inspired by cultures and mythology that are rarely represented. And I did find that aspect quite refreshing and interesting.
I was gonna give this 3 or even 3.25 stars for the longest time, but I just hate that ending so much, for the aforementioned reasons, so it’s a 2.75 stars.
----
Tropes and such:
romantasy inspired by a story from the Inca empire
Despite the best of my intentions, I didn't pick up any Asian dramas this week. Guess I'm still in a slump. I've been enjoying 'watching' a few on my dash though. I did finish a couple books, bought a few more, and started a Lego set with my nibling. So it was still a good week in the end.
[ finishing ]
Chase Me If You Can by Heather Frances {5 stars} - m/f storm chasers romance - It was better than I expected and I liked how much storm chasing happened. It wasn't just a background setting.
Full Speed to a Crash Landing (Chaotic Orbits #1) by Beth Revis {3.5 stars} - sci-fi - This is the first in a novella trilogy and I will probably read the next two. I find the pov character more than a little annoying though, so it will be awhile.
Prince and Pawn (Perilous Courts #3) by Tavia Lark {4 stars} - Another solid entry in this series. I love the world these books are set in, but am a bit disappointed this is the last one set in this particular location. The next three are set in the rival country, so the plot point I was most excited for will likely be happening in the background.
[ listening ]
[ reading ]
Ink and Ice (Twin Cities Ice) by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese - m/m figure skating romance
[ watching ]
Spider-Man: Brand New Day {5 stars} - I loved it. The "grounded" feel that all the reviewers rave about really works for Spider-Man. And yet it had a lot of action too. I am hoping the next movie continues the transformation/evolution thread because that is what I was most looking forward to. And it turned out to just be a catalyst for the X-Men plot. Narratively, it makes sense, but for Peter, himself, it's not at all resolved. [wow four commas in one sentence just to make it readable]
Ted Lasso s4, ep 1 - It didn't feel like the start of a season. It felt like a prologue. Which, yes technically is the start of a book. It just didn't feel like a true start to a new storyline.
-
previous 2026 Currents posts
* this is usually just a sampling, rather than a complete list of everything I engaged with this week
✨🏹☘️The Magical Mishaps of Sydney Mitching by Avery Carter - 3.5 / 5 stars☘️🏹✨
This was a nice sapphic post-apocalyptic fantasy romp. It is set in a version of North America that has become a bit of a wasteland after the sudden appearance of magic and magical creatures one day. Sydney’s been surviving all on her own, slowly making her way back to the town where she was raised in hopes of finding her dad (preferably in an alive state). Upon reaching the town she finds an almost utopian community of survivors, one of whom, Emma, starts flirting with her right away.
This is a perfectly fine story, very readable and endearing. It didn’t quite blow me away, but I still quite enjoyed reading it. I’m always a sucker for a found family, and this book conveyed the emotions of that trope well, it somehow manages to feel very cozy at times, despite the fact that it’s set in a literal apocalypse.
The magic is fine, but also felt a bit like an afterthought, it’s focused a lot more on the romance and the characters’ other relationships than the world-building. There was also a bit of insta-love with Sydney and Emma, since Emma seems to be horny for Sydney from the get-go.
Overall a solid book. It is the first in a series, but is also a satisfying read as a stand-alone.
-----
Tropes and such:
basically a sapphic fantasy romcom
but set in post-apocalyptic North America
but also the post-apocalyptic mini-society is basically queernormative
just finished the intro chapter of this and i'm fucking levitating the amount of underlines and giant !!!s in the margins and i'm only 30 pages in lmao
confronting the organisation of capitalist technology to both shape, reproduce, and galvanise the socially-constructed binaries (man/woman, white/non-white, civilized/savage, "reason/emotion, culture/nature, body/mind and so on.") that underpin the extractive logics of capitalism; the imperial function of mass media to propagandise those logics; the "masculinist desire to both "extend one's power across space and time" and the "gendered balance of feminized care and misogynistic exit out of the social that is intertwined within technological objects used for navigating the day"...
it feels unfair to compare them, but even in the intro this is the feminist tech critique that's everything laura bates's 'the new age of sexism' decidedly was lacking.
"Together these technologies compose a world of tacit acceptance of surveillance, control, discipline, and consumption, but also they reflect and create a world of seemingly endless and abundant assistance made all the more attractive for the algorithmic return on one’s investment — enter into this domain, and you will be part of a recursive net; you will be seen and taken care of. All of life is delivered straight to your door. All of these orientations depend upon relations of capitalistic and individualized notions of time, and with this comes a dependency on the inequitable gendered, raced, and classed labor of others in order to get through the day."
some more quotes from the intro chap under the cut:
"It is important to note, however, that Musk and Bezos do launch their rockets and rovers as an exercise in reproduction, as a means for producing a new multiplanet species. But this reproduction has nothing to do with a natural or essential quality inherent to the category of men in tech in the same way that there is no natural feminist politics inherent in the category of women in tech that could put an end to tech patriarchy.
The patriarchs of Big Tech, the sex organs of the machine world, may appear to be driven by an essential masculine impulse that they cannot help because of their gender, but we must think rather in terms of how they can very much help it and that there is instead a very powerful structure of tech patriarchy that is tied to an overall ethos of the extractive utility of people, of the Earth, and now of the entire universe."
"Feminist techno-logics are oriented to cultivating the temporalities, spatialities, rhythms of relations, capacities, and mobilities that are incompatible with one’s utility within the normative family, the workplace, and the marketplace. [...]This would be a techno-feminism that eschews essentialized notions of binary gender identity as it operates as a guide through the contradictions of racialized capitalism."
"Os Keyes, science and technology studies theorist with a focus on trans medicine and care, argues nearly twenty-five years later against adding new categories of consent to things like facial recognition technologies and suggests instead that these technologies should be rejected altogether. To fine-tune them is to accept their development. They argue, "We should focus on delegitimizing the technology altogether, ensuring it never gets integrated into society." Keyes states, “Any measurement system, once it becomes integrated into infrastructures of power, gatekeeping, and control, fundamentally changes the thing being measured. And these outcomes become naturalized: we begin to treat how the tool sees reality as reality itself.”"
"Feminist nonbinary internet scholar Legacy Russell, who also focuses on the relationship between technology and Black visual culture, states in Glitch Feminism, “When we reject the binary, we reject the economy that goes along with it. When we reject the binary, we challenge how we are valued in a capitalist society that yokes our gender to the labor we enact.”32 The patriarchal techno-logic is composed of technologies that both reflect and organize an economy of care that takes as given the utility of others while it depends upon an ever-increasing demand for the labor of others. A feminist techno-logic would challenge this utility."
"A feminist techno-logic captures how the machinic can be attuned to feminist ends. Can we imagine a nonextractive notion of utility, for example? Can we redefine what a technology is and how it is understood? As I spend time on this relationship between utility and extension through these pages, the feminist techno-logic does not challenge the notion that technologies are extensions of our capacities, but it accounts for how, in this extension, the reorganization of labor and vulnerability are a part of the message of every medium. A feminist approach to the techno-logic is not only a theory about the extension of human bodily capacities into so-called innovations that reorder sensory apparatus and social life, it is also a media theory that recognizes and finally calls attention to the fact that one particular body has been extended. (emphasis mine)"
Anything good you've been reading lately? fic or otherwise!
yes yes yes!!!! i haven't really read much fic in 2026 honestly. but my standout read has been the arrangement by @vagueshadows-fics!! just such a delightful read and character study on hogwarts jily. i loooove a good fake dating trope and this one is brilliant!!!
i've read many many many books, though!!! if you are looking for a specific genre/tone/vibe, let me know and i'd love to find something personal for you. but my recent random favs have been:
- The Everlasting by Alix E Harrow (fantasy/time travel/romance/historical fiction)
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (coming of age/historical fiction/modern classic lit)
- Talking at Night by Claire Daverley (contemporary romance)
- The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (historical fiction/mystery)
- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann (non-fiction/historical/adventure/mystery)
This was amazing and I’m kinda sad that it’s a standalone because I’m so not ready to say goodbye to these characters😭 Like don’t get me wrong, the story has a satisfying ending as is, but I want more! I loved this so much, I am absolutely looking forward to this author’s future work.
